Seeking parental approval- how to overcome it

[Pongsquiffy]

I've come to realise I have an unhealthy need for my parents approval in everything I do. I am late-30s, in a good job, stable marriage with 2 kids and generally have my shit together. But I have always felt a lot of anxiety around my parents and have come to realise it's because I crave their approval.

Has anyone got any tips or actions for overcoming this? Ways to challenge my thinking? Unfortunately it's not quite as easy or black as white as thinking "I don't care what they think" as this behaviour has been ingrained in me (along with punishment if they didn't approve) since childhood.

Following this.. but also offering support and empathy because I am exactly the same. My husband often calls me out on it.

No tips but I could have written your post

Consider getting therapy from the likes of a BACP registered therapist. Interview such people carefully and at length before proceeding. You need to find someone who fits in with your approach.

Reading Toxic Parents by Susan Forward could also help as a starting point. Give yourself the approval they are not giving. You do not need their approval, not that they would ever give it to you anyway. That is their issue and not yours.
Read and or post on the current Well we took you to Stately Homes thread on these Relationships pages.

Read the narcissistic family by Stephanie Donaldson-Presman, you will find it useful I promise.
Its a subtle thing but seeking parental approval can be soul and life destroying. It can often happen even when you don’t share your parent’s values, or when you don’t particularly want to be like them. If you think you do want to be like them, maybe reflect a while on how their disapproval makes you feel, and consider if that is really the impact you want to have on people in your own life.

One way you might wean yourself off this behaviour is to deliberately and carefully choose a parent like role model, someone you truly respect, someone who makes the people around them feel valued and who seems to enjoy their life.
It could be a writer, a spiritual leader, even a historical figure- when you start to think about if your parents would approve of this or that decision or achievement, also think about what your chosen role-model would say, and what advice or encouragement would they give.

By doing this, you can start to see the difference between what they value and what you really want and value in your life, if you try to do it every time a thought about what your parents think comes up it will soon break the spell. It worked for me, I chose a spiritual writer whose work and life I really admire, I had read so much of there work that I felt I could take a good guess at what they might say in any given situation.

Following

Therapy. Not CBT, proper psychotherapy and be prepared to stick at it for years

Thanks all for your suggestions so far, I’ll take a look at those books mentioned. Therapy has crossed my mind before but to be honest I never thought I was ‘bad enough’ to need therapy. But I’ve been thinking about it a lot over the past few months and i definitely have an unhealthy need for approval from them that impacts my daily life so maybe it would help

@Pongsquiffy One tip from personal experience, the next time you're made aware that you have not won their approval, do not do anything except sit with that discomfort.

In my past, I always tried to bring up conversations, defend myself (even if they weren't on that occasion giving my ''failure'' any thought).

I have on occasion though being given the silent treatment for standing up to my mother in some minor way, or just failing to reflect her rosy view of herself back to her. For DECADES I wold initially feel outraged and upset because I KNEW I had done nothing wrong but I'd always try to get her to see that, understand it.. I just tormented myself.

Eventually I began ''just'' enduring the discomfort of having displeased her.

I had a look at that book @Crunchygrass , it's on audible, think i'll listen to it. I have listened to a hundred books and bingewatched 100 channels on narcissism but the dynamics of the dysfunctional family and how they project roles on to each other is something I'm only just learning about now.

I can really relate to this way of thinking. eg, I'm not bi-polar, I'm not chaotic, everybody sees me as normal, why would i have therapy, is it dramatic of me? Is it self-indulgent of me?

But my therapist that i went to just 2 years ago was just what I needed. She was in to the practice of self-acceptance and self-compassion which did indeed feel too self=indulgent and dramatic to begin with. In fact, early on, i was thinking god 60 euro for this. but I kept going back because she really heard me and she was validating and kind and eventually i got the point of it all.

I recommend Kirsten Neff Phd and Christopher germer's mindful self-compassion WORK book. Do the exercises. There are 15 or 16 chapters so I was doing one chapter every saturday morning, didn't rush it. I think it helped me a lot. I am not hard on myself now. so other people's high bar for me, meh, i'd find it easier to tune it out, be kind to myself, not judge myself by somebody else's standards.

One of my fears was that it would make me lazy but there's a really good aspect of self-compassion which is re parenting. Some call it re mothering and re fathering but I think she calls it the yin and the yang of self compassion and the yin is soothing, validating and accepting and the yang is motivating and protective and disciplined. So it hasn't made me any lazier!

I recommend that you stop telling them as much about your life. Then they cannot comment on it.

With my own parents, it's strange because my mum has all manner of undiagnosed mental health issues. Over time I've come to see her unbearable desire to control everything as anxiety driven and that it cannot be helped. So I've emotionally detached from that. I don't see it as he judging me, rather trying to control everything because of her poor mental health. But again, the less I tell her, the less she interfers.

My dad on the other hand is just a judgemental arsehole sometimes. It wasn't really until lockdown and I saw all of his little digs in black and white on the family group chat that I woke up to it. And again, I just distance myself from that and only tell him what I need to. I also remember that he was a practically absent parent who left us kids with our highly dysfunctional mother most of the time. So he is one to talk TBH.

I avoid spending time with them a lot more after covid too.

Hi I know this is an old post, but I wondered if you got anywhere with anything. I am going through a similar thing. Although I also KNOW they haven't done this on purpose. They haven't purposely hurt me or made me feel shit. I'm scared I will now end up doing the same to my son.